3 tips on how to approach this challenge

Amid macroeconomic challenges, organisations are urging their teams to focus on core business growth opportunities to increase short-term returns and decrease risk.

The good news is that research shows that companies which devote 70% of their resources to advancing their core business innovations tend to outshine their peers (1). The iPhone is a prime example of this strategy. As Apple's flagship product, a consistent stream of incremental improvements keeps it relevant and unique.

An excellent recent example is P&G laundry brands reframing their value amid the cost of living crisis. They use energy-saving claims while stressing their superior product performance at low temperatures. They've stuck to their core brand equity messages (performance) and re-expressed the value they offer.

Here are three ways to unlock new ideas to jump-start core business growth.

• Understand your consumers' jobs-to-be-done.

• Rethink your unique brand assets and distinctive value.

• Collaborative co-creation with colleagues, partners, consumers and customers to design novel ideas.

Let's take each of these in turn.

Understand your consumer and the 'jobs-to-be-done.'

Clayton Christensen coined the term jobs-to-be-done when describing how consumers hire a product to perform a job when they want to achieve something. 

In a well-known case study, he used the example of observations of commuters buying milkshakes to pass the time during their long journeys—a 'job' other drinks couldn't solve. More conventional thinking would have missed this critical insight.

How do you identify these unforeseen jobs?

No doubt, like many organisations, you are data-rich and insight poor with a ton of customer/consumer data, past market research reports, NPD, segmentation and tracking studies, as well as category analysis, and current analytics.

But don't despair. These reports often have a lot of missed value. So start by examining this archive and mapping out the 'jobs to be done'.

There will be gold nuggets; these are often topics you've heard repeatedly but have yet to act on.

Look out for consumer frustrations, unexpected behaviours (like the milkshake example), and category norms that don't reflect consumer beliefs or behaviours.

These nuggets are your 'known unknowns', hunches, thought-starters. Work with consumers and business partners to experiment with solutions to these hunches to see if you're on to something. See below: co-creation.

Rethink your unique brand assets and technical capabilities.

The next step is to reevaluate what makes your brand unique and memorable.

Review your inventory of past advertising and brand communication. 

• Define unique brand assets like design codes, semiotics, claims, and product/user experience. 

• Identify consistent themes, messages and claims.

• Assess what has worked and what hasn't.

Next, create some competitor playbooks. Brands are, if nothing, predictable. Your rivals will have formulaic marketing and innovation strategies. What are they? In comparison, spot what makes your brand extraordinary.

Finally, review your technology and manufacturing expertise. Bring your technologists, R&D experts, and sales and manufacturing colleagues together to investigate the value chain, your IP and unique capabilities. Talk about the technical challenges you have overcome throughout the value chain to create distinctive customer experiences and the current logistical and operational challenges.

These discussions initiate thought-starters for product and range revisions, new claims and reframing the messaging based on your unique brand assets.

The example at the top of this article on how P&G reframed low-temperature washing benefits shows how they understood the cost-conscious shoppers' needs while staying true to their brand equities and product superiority.

Collaborative co-creation

The magic happens when you bring a diverse team to review all this material to inspire new integrated product and marketing ideas.

Overlay your customers 'jobs to be done' with your brand and commercial strategies, and then blend your unique brand assets and technical know-how to create different concepts.

How can you do this?

Allocate 2-3 days offsite to the task, away from the day-to-day distractions. Have a mix of people with diverse expertise and backgrounds, e.g. marketing, sales, category, manufacturing, operations, R&D, and business partners.

Immerse everyone in your findings and create a wide range of concepts. Turn these concepts into integrated product and marketing ideas. Consider all critical customer touchpoints to create distinctive consumer/shopper experiences to unlock a 'big idea'.

Also, remember that practical constraints inspire creativity:

For instance, you might challenge the team to:

• Create new consumer-compelling claims from existing products and technologies

• Utilise existing assets with minimal capital expenditure

• Generate time-bound ideas to implement in the next 6, 12 or 18 months, so you have a pipeline of integrated initiatives

• Ensure ideas don't deviate from your long-term brand strategies

Involve consumers halfway through your offsite to bounce ideas around and get their feedback.

Such co-creation workshops help you get a much more detailed view of the value your customers seek and how to deliver it. These sessions help spot flaws in your thinking and fine-tune your understanding of the jobs-to-be-done. Your solutions will have tremendous potential as a result.

To sum up

Three ways to unlock new ideas for core business growth:

1. Understand your consumer target and the 'jobs-to-be-done.'

2. Rethink your unique brand assets and distinctive technical capabilities.

3. Collaborate and co-create solutions with cross-functional colleagues, partners and consumers, using practical resource constraints to inspire creativity.

Need help to jump-start growth with innovative ideas? Give us a shout. We’d love to help.

And, if you’re interested, ffind our free guide to collaborative user-centred design here.

1 Nagli and Tuff, Managing your innovation portfolio. HBR.org 2012